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It's true, the deadlift is the king of all exercises. Today I feel EVERYTHING. My upper back and shoulders all the way out to my biceps and forearms are sore. Of course my lower back feels tight and compressed, but overall I feel great about yesterday's session.

Tomorrow should be good, to get back under the bar for squats again. My squat is weak compared to my bench and deadlift, and it's something I need to fix with lots of hard work.

Once I've recieved my bench shirt and found a squat suit I want to really start moving serious weights. I can't freaking wait. I should be moving 400+ in my shirt, and go over 500 and 600 in squats and deads respectively, for a 1500lb total. I think that would be a very good starting point for competing in single ply, and in the next few years I should be able to add quite a bit to that.

At this point I decided to do move away from the written plan and do some heavy chain work.

Bench press with chains-
225+60x3
225+60x2
225+60x2
225+60x2
225+60x2

Squats-
135x5
205x5
245x5
245x5
285x4
285x4
285x4
285x4

The bench with chains was 285 at the top. I feel amazing about my bench press. The last set was much easier than the first, as my form got tighter and tighter. I'm working hard on getting a good arch and keeping my armpits tight. When I do that my control is spot on and the weight flies off my chest. As soon as the weight slows down I flare my arms and that locks it out.

Squats were deep today. If I try to control my depth I lose pop from the bottom. If instead I just drop ATG them push with everything I've got I seem to be able to come back up with more consistency. It's also nice to KNOW that I reached depth without question. Once I get a squat suit I'll figure out what I need to do to get the most I can out of it, but for now I'm taking my raw squats deep.

That looks like a crazy session. You upping the calories during this or running them status quo?

Not upping calories at all. If anything, maybe dropping them a little as I've been completely unable to lose any weight. Remember, I'm on 2 anabolic compounds at the moment, so even though I'm sore my body can recover from this just fine even with less food.

Strength gains are kicking into full gear. I felt like a squatting and benching machine today. My experience with combining chains and the slingshot only cements my excitement about getting into a bench shirt. I was able to do 345+30 today, which means it was 375 at the top, and I should have gotten the 345+50, but you'll have to excuse me; I've never held 400lb over my chest, and my form wasn't as good as it soon will be with this sort of weight.

I was only supposed to go up to 365 on squats today, and even that was going to be tough considering that my squat 1rm PR before this session was 375, but after I did my first single with 365 I knew I had a lot more left in me. I immediately threw on 20 more pounds and squatted it with no problem.

Yeah, this session was awesome. It's only going to get better from here. Bench shirt, singlet and belt should be here TOMORROW. And in the coming weeks? 400 will be mine, both for my shirted bench AND my raw squat.